But I did. These guys have been a great help and encouragement through some tough times for me and they probably don't even realize it. - Pagangoddess
First of all I want to thank Mehdi a lot for StrongLifts.com, for the philosphy, the techniques, which summed up all the sensical things I was reading here and there about weight gain. I attribute a big chunk (specially when it comes to exercises) of my recent weight gain to his 5x5 Beginner program.
I want to quickly share my story coz I gotta work. I'm in NY right now. I am 6"1 or 6"2, 26 yrs old, and have been weighing around 142-145lbs for most of my life, never had strong appetite and people specially recently would tell me that I need to eat more. I have a fairly fast metabolism. I don't want to eat more if I know it's going to lead nowhere.
I always kind of suffered because of my 'skininess', specially shirts and pants always looked not filled up enough, always making me a tad (not extremely) uncomfortable.
When I was around 22, I went to a gym regularly in UK with a friend and we were pretty motivated, but we didn't know how to lift, and we didn't have a plan. But we thought we did. We would try to eat more than usual and we would spend our parents money on some added MyoPlex Deluxe shakes (prohibitively expensive) on top of that.
At that time we would just do the regular gym circuit, using all these machines, and not much free weights. At that time I saw some big guys doing squats, but looking at them, I was wondering what in the world could that exercise do for you?
The conclusion was not so great I gained a few pounds, I felt a little better, but I moved away, didn't have my gym membership and lost all my extra weight.
Now jump 4 years forward, and I suddenly got a renewed desire to gain weight. And I knew that food was where i should win. So I started to read about nutrition on ABout.com and Bodybuilding.com. I read all about ectomorphs, and what I should do to gain weight. There were points of agreements but also some people didn't agree on when to drink your shake, what to eat pre-workout and post-workout...
But bottom line was to eat a great amount of protein, carbs with also fats and fiber. So I spent a couple of full weekends on making the perfect diet plan, and cooking.
My current goal is to weigh 186lbs coz I read I should weigh 86 lbs per cms over 1M. I am 1m86. 186lbs sounds very good to me! Actually I am aiming for 190lbs to make it round~
I have a hectic work schedule and a daughter (19months old), and no car. I tried FitDay, but it's way too long. So I just eat more. I also know that because I didn't eat much before, even if I eat a lot more, there will be results. As long as I am consistent. Of course when I grow more, I'll have to seriously up my caloric / protein intake. ALWAYS THINK ABOUT YOUR PROTEINS.
So I started eating my 3 meals a day + 2 or 3 snacks WITH PROTEIN. So I can't just eat a sandwich with butter and jam. Need my protein.
My diet I think is fairly simple, in the morning, everyday, first thing, I blend 1 cup of raw oats, 1 scoop of ON WHEY Protein Gold Standard, 1 spoon of Peanut Butter (mostly for taste reasons), 4 ice cubes (for coolness) some milk and some water.
For My lunch and dinner I eat either Pasta (51% whole wheat by Barilla) Bolognese (with extra meat), Chicken Breast and brown rice (in a tomato based sauce, Thai REd Curry or maybe french style, cream sauce), or just steaks / marinated beef again with brown rice. I don't really calculate my intake but i just try to eat as much as I can (this is going up too coz i think my stomach is growing, i mean i used to skip breakfast everyday, eat a small lunch and small dinner...).
For 10am / 3.30pm snacks I eat either Tuna Sandwich, Egg Sandwich, a lot of milk, yogurt, 2 TB Spoons of Peanut butter, fruits, stuff like that. I try to make sure there is always protein and that it fills me up nice. I also try to drink whole milk on top of all that throughout the day, although I don't GOMAD.
Then I do 1 scoop whey shake before workout, also i make sure I eat my 6pm meal which as complex carbs about 60min before workout. While working out and after I drink a powerade. Right after workout I drink another shake this time with 2 scoops of whey, and at that time I try to eat a lot after that. Another full meal with especially a lot of carbs, coz the protein, a good part of it got taken care of through the weigh.
Now regarding the exercises: I follow the 5x5 workout program of Mehdi as precisely as I can. And I agree with all he says 100%. Squats are the best, I feel my legs growing, which never happened, my pants fill more filled up, my bakc, shoulders, chests are all worked out through great overhead presses, bench presses, deadlifts (I have to work on the technique for that one), pull-ups / chin-ups, push-ups, INVERTED ROWS (what a great exercise that is), inverted crunch, Prone thing..., I mean it's perfect.
I brought 2 friends (who were much more advanced in weightlifting than me) to this program and they LOVE IT! They think it's the best program ever. So everyone's happy!
One thing, I really appreciate the effort you put on Technique, it's very detailed. And actually i found your site coz you're like #1 or #2 on Google for most Strenght exercise keywords. (I think your site traffic is going to explode soon). I put a lot of effort into trying to do the exercise right: tight shoulders, glutes squeezed, the right grip, below parallel for squats, all that is great! THANK YOU!!!
I must admit that I take Creatine. And actually, it's when I heard a friend who got big talking about Creatine (he told me that before he was skinny, and couldn't really bulk up, but after taking that he got bigger). So all that was before stronglifts.com. I ordered it and i am taking it. So everyone who is reading take note. I don't know how much it's contributing. But I know it doesn't make me smaller. Also I had a cousin who was always big on bodybuilding, and looked really big, when I was like 14 he was in his 20s and he looked big. I remember he took protein shakes and creatine. So it stuck in my head. I did loading phase and now I take 5g before and after workouts. I will have a 4-5 week no-creatine rest period after 8 weeks of it. I probably won't take it in the future once i reached my goal. So I don't know what to say about that. But for sure I'll keep my routine for now.
I hope this was helpful to my ectomorph buddies!
Conclusion is don't skip meal, don't skip workouts, eat after workout a lot more, and add weight to your exercises one by one.
THANK YOU MEHDI SO MUCH FOR YOUR WORKOUT PROGRAM!!! It's really what I needed. Now I weigh almost 155 lbs. Next stop is 160 then 170 lbs then 80 kgs and then 190lbs!!!
Free Weights are the best! When I see people using those useless machines and pull-up helpers... I always think about Mehdi!
Take it easy all! (Well not too much!) I am very happy about my weight gain!
